27th October 2005 Archive

Earlier this month, Napster began a billboard campaign making a virtue of its greatest shortcoming: that you don't get to keep any music. If you rent music from Napster, the music disappears when the relationship ends. If you want your music to last for life, you need a lifetime subscription to Napster.

We have more letters for and against Wikipedia. There's much less snarling and YDGIs ["You don't Get It!"] from the project's supporters this time. Here, we'll discuss a much-quoted comparison by enthusiasts of "collective intelligence" between Wikipedia and Linux.

OUT-LAW News, 26/10/2005 The US State Department on Tuesday set out rules that will govern the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips in US passports. The passports, which will be piloted from December, are due to be issued in the US from October 2006, according to reports.

Rafael Nuñez-Aponte will soon be going home to Caracas after spending seven months in a U.S. jail for compromising a computer belonging to the Department of Defense, but only if the National Aeronautics and Space Administration decides not to pursue charges against him.

A major UK government campaign to help consumers and small businesses protect themselves from internet security threats launches in the UK on Thursday. The 'Get Safe Online' campaign aims to arrest the growth in computer security risks that threaten to slow down the rise of ecommerce. The scheme - backed by the launch of a www.getsafeonline.org website - aims to help the public to become more "cyber-savvy" and to consolidate net security information, which is currently fragmented.

The tramp steamer bearing the long-awaited BOFH volumes finally docked in Blighty earlier this week packed to the gunwales with Bastard literature. Strangely, though, there was no sign of volume three - an absence so mysterious that we can only conclude that something not unrelated to the Marie Celeste, Bermuda Triangle and alien abduction is responsible for the outrage.

Saturn's F-ring is being twisted into its contorted shape by the gravitational effect of the moon Prometheus. The F-ring is riddled with unusual structures and distortions, like knots, kinks and clumps, but now astronomers have shown how some of these effects can be explained by the gravity of the small moon.

Talented, young and fit football hopefuls who fancy a training trip to Bangkok before challenging for the Irish league need look no further than Doyles FC, which is currently looking to expand its international roster:

Today brings further proof that no human disaster these days arises without been exploited by internet ne'er-do-wells. Hot on the heels of a spam campaign punting Tamiflu, the drug believed most effective at protecting humans from the potentially-lethal H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, comes a piece of malware designed to tap into topical concerns about the disease.

A number of senior executives at Gizmondo Europe quit the company last week ahead of the US launch of the firm's handheld games console and amid allegations in the Swedish press that some had criminal pasts.

The paranoia, or sense of persecution, experienced by some schizophrenics could be due to a problem they have processing contextual information, according to researchers at University College London (UCL).

Bill Gates dropped into Paris this week to discuss combating online child abuse with French ministers. French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy met the Microsoft founder on Monday to hold talks1 on the development of criminality on the net, child pornography and the struggle against online paedophilia, AFP reports.

North Carolina has agreed to pay Chinese computer maker Lenovo millions of dollars to build a new research and development center in the state. This handout goes to a company which is largely owned by the PRC and builds on a growing tradition in North Carolina to woo businesses with massive amounts of cash.

Sun Microsystems has managed to nurture a blade server business, only it's on a rival's hardware. IBM today has become the first major server vendor - other than Sun - to ship Solaris x86 on its mainstream systems. (Yes, we know Compaq once sold Solaris x86. Thanks for the memories.)

Back in January 1982, the US Department of Justice announced the dawn of a new era of competition. The national phone monopoly AT&T was to be broken up, creating seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) to compete alongside the phone veteran. It was the second anti-trust agreement in AT&T's history.